Divine Words
by klassekatze
Summary: Caster never reached the Temple. As she lay dying, in another time and another place, a small boy collapses on a circle that shouldn't exist. Just before the end, Caster finds herself summoned, out of the war and into a world that seems like a mockery of everything she has ever known. But to five year old Harry, even the Witch of Betrayal is salvation. It certainly can't be worse.
1. Arrival

She was the last and greatest Magus of the Age of the Gods, a relic out of time. Summoned from outside time and space from the Throne of Heroes to battle to the death as part of a enormous ritual encompassing an entire city, charged with the life force of its inhabitants and fueled by the souls of fallen.

And she was dying.

It had hurt at first. But she couldn't feel anything now. She couldn't hear anything but the sound of her own heart slowing and the patter of the rain. It seemed off to her that she wasn't trying harder to survive, but there wasn't really anything she could do. No magecraft lay within her meagre reserves, no muscles obeyed her mind. All she could do was twitch and stare into the dark. So much easier to just lay here.

It wasn't supposed to end like this. Most of her life, she had been a puppet for the Gods. She'd wanted a second chance. A chance for a life of her own.

But life wasn't fair like that, was it?

She could see her body start to shimmer out of the corner of her eye, losing coherency as the last of her prana bled out onto the road.

It is said that to be a magus was to walk with death. She had accepted that, so long ago. But it was just so monstrously unfair.

...What was that noise?

There was a deep hum, growing louder at an alarming rate, the road started to vibrate. Even in her numbed state, she could feel it. Something was reaching out to her -

_if you will submit to this will and this reason... then answer_

She accepted the pull.

_- a whirlwind of colors and flashing lights, a __kaleidoscope, __screaming wind in a airless void, forces tearing at her, disintegrating -_

Everything went black.

* * *

When she regained consciousness, it was pitch black.

She felt better than she had before. Somehow she had gone from mortally wounded to merely severely injured. Her supply of prana felt about half full.

As far as she could tell, she was sprawled out on a dirty concrete floor. Running a hand over the floor, she could feel something engraved there.

She laid there for a while, listening. With her preternatural hearing as a Servant, she could hear cars faintly in the distance, the wind, all the noises of an urban environment except people.

Breathing. Something was breathing faintly within a few meters of her. There was the faint metallic scent of blood. Quietly, she murmured "**φως.**", A dim purple-white sphere of light formed in her palm. It revealed a child, five or six at most. He was wearing ill-fitting clothes, and was sprawled over what appeared to be a complicated Formalcraft circle of unknown purpose. Blood was smeared on the circle where he collapsed. And on his hand…

Command Spells. So this was how she had arrived here, in… wherever she was. Normally, she would be provided with information by the Grail system. Clearly, that was not the case here. In fact, she couldn't feel a connection to anything at all, other than a faint one to the boy.

The building they were in appeared to be abandoned and decayed, or at least this part of it. Sweeping her hand around her she could see bare concrete walls. Against the wall there was a decayed desk and a metal cabinet. Aside from a few brooms in the corner, there was nothing else in the room she could see.

Wincing, she climbed to her feet. Checking the boy, he didn't seem to be in danger of dying while she wasn't looking, so she approached the desk. On top of the desk were several mirror-like items and some sort of gyroscope, and a pair of ridiculously complicated brass binoculars. Looking in the top drawer, she found an unknown Mystic Code in the form of a wand. Idly, she waved it, to no effect. Not surprising, most Mystic Codes only worked for their intended owner and their lineage.

Putting it down on the desk, she searched the other drawers and the cabinet. The desk contained a few quills, dried out ink pots, parchments and letters, and some candles. In the top drawer of the cabinet there were various vials, most of them had burst and contained nothing but dust. The handful that remained unbroken had labels indicating they were a variety of antidotes and healing potions.

The lower drawer only contained a penknife and a bag filled with a large number of strange coins.

If she had to guess, this was some Magus's workshop, or a workspace anyway, that had long since been abandoned. The question now was, what was a child doing in here?

* * *

Harry woke with a start. Where was he? The last thing he could remember he was cornered by Dudley…

Opening his eyes, he saw he was in a room dimly lit by candles. There was a strange woman looking down at him... "Gah!" he yelped and skittered away from her. She was dressed in a strange outfit, some sort of cloak mostly covering her, but the hood was laid back and he could see that her hair was a vivid blue, and her ears were _pointed_. Still, she was almost unnaturally beautiful. Blue eyes looked at him calmly.

"Who are you," Harry said hesitantly.

"Mmm, I think I should be asking the questions here, no?" she said lightly. "How did a child like yourself come to be in a place like this?" She gestured at the decaying room.

"I don't know… I was running and I really needed a place to hide and suddenly I felt like I was being squeezed and then I woke up here I think," he babbled. "Wait, no, please don't tell anyone I said that, I'll be punished…"

"Punished for what?" the woman asked him curiously. Harry hesitated. In the past, if he said anything about his relatives, people would be alarmed, but somehow always ended up dismissing everything, and he would be punished. Then again, any time he mentioned something 'freakish', they seemed skeptical at best. This woman, Vernon would call her a freak as it is.

Her eyes stared into his. They were so pretty...

Harry reluctantly decided he would explain. If she acted like the rest, he could just slip away or something.

"I live with my uncle. He says that I'm a freak, and when things go wrong he says its my fault. Sometimes strange things happen, and I'm punished and locked in the cupboard then. I don't know why I'm even telling you this, you'll just decide I'm lying or forget I told you and I'll be punished." Harry said resignedly.

"Hardly the strangest thing I have heard," she said, almost playfully. "You weren't very specific as to punishment…"

Harry cringed. "...He hits me sometimes. But he says thats the only way to fix a freak like me."

The blue-haired woman looked at him flatly. "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard."

Of course she wouldn't believe him. They never did, even if they seemed to at first.

"...The very idea that hitting someone and locking them in small spaces could 'fix' anything. Clearly, your guardians are twisted people."

Harry blinked.

"I'm beginning to see how I ended up here, at least in part. Tell me, do you believe in magic?"

"Theres no such thing as magic!" Harry said vehemently. "If you said something like that around my uncle he would blame me for putting unnatural thoughts in your head."

"Mmm, I'm beginning to think he protests a bit too hard for someone who believes what he is saying," she said dryly. "Tell me about your parents."

"...They died in a car accident. My uncle said they were drunks, and got what was coming to them."

"Hmh," she said. She looked at Harry speculatively. "Magic is real, boy. I suspect that if your parents had not died things would be very different. While its possible your uncle is just psychotic, I'm inclined to think that he is far too worried about 'freakish things' and magic with regards to you for you to be a perfectly normal boy. Your rather mysterious appearance in this room when you needed it most only clinches it for me."

Harry was not sure what to think. On one hand, she was basically saying he really was a freak. On the other, she didn't seem to think it was a bad thing… in fact, she looked pleased for some strange reason.

"Well, we'll just have to check these things. Element and origin… circuits…" she started muttering to herself. A twisted dagger materialize in her hand. Harry's eyes widened. "Oh, don't worry, I just need something to cut the floor with. Many Magi would be scandalized by my using such as this as a carving knife, but needs must."

Harry sat there silently while she cut a complicated circle into the floor. "This is a bit crude, but there is very little I actually need to do this sort of thing for. Step in the circle, boy."

Warily, Harry did as she asked. The woman touched the edge of the circle. "**εκτελέσει,**" she murmured.

To Harrys shock, the circle lit up with a dull red glow. He felt something pass through him, like a breeze that tingled.

"Mmm, well aren't you something, eh?" she said in a delighted tone. "You make no sense, but you definitely have some kind of magical power."

"Well, that settles it. I'm going to keep you." Harry blinked. Who would want a freak like him?

"Can you even do that?" he said confusedly.

"Ah, I'm sure someone would object, but it doesn't sound like your relatives would, no? And even if they did, its not like I care what they think," she said. "Not that I'm giving you any choice in the matter, but can you honestly tell me you'd prefer to stay with boring, normal people who treat you like trash?"

"...I suppose not," Harry said slowly.

"Good," she said.

Harry sat there in a sort of daze as the woman bustled about the room, collecting various items. Finally, she put them away in her cloak somewhere and came up to him.

"Oh, I almost forgot," she said to him. "What is your name?"

Harry wondered if he was crazy to even consider going with some woman who decided to "keep" him before she even knew his name. He didn't even know hers, at that.

"Harry... Harry Potter," he said. "You never did tell me your name."

"I suppose it can't hurt to tell you. This isn't exactly what I was expecting when I was summoned here." Summoned? "Normally, I'd say call me Caster. But just between us… you can call me Medea."

* * *

AN:

Well, after 3 rewrites, I suppose this is as good as its going to get without reviews. Regarding FSN references, I do plan to explain things as the opportunity comes up. Theres an entire world of wizards who haven't a clue about the mechanics of FSN, Harry included, so if you don't know something, I'll probably explain it at some point by virtue of Harry or someone else getting the gist. Don't get the idea that our (anti-)heroes will be raving about Magecraft to wizards; Magi guard their mysteries fiercely, they don't just hand them out to other Magi, even when they are friends.

In case anyone wonders, Caster is capable of operating for as much as two days without having a Master at all. From this, I have extrapolated that she wouldn't drop dead even if Harry is no Lesser Grail to sustain her. Lastly, don't get the idea that she is bubbling with love for Harry here. She just happens to have need of a pliable Master in any case, had one out of the box, and then found he has some very unusual properties. But even indifference is better than the Dursleys, no?


	2. Equivalent Exchange

It turned out that for someone like Medea, it really was as simple as she implied. Almost. There were a few bumps in the road, such as the unknown Bounded Field around 4 Privet Drive (which she refused to risk entering), but it was as simple as calling the Dursleys from a pay phone and convincing them to come to a house down the road. The Dursleys were all too quick to believe that the 'freak' had hurt someone and came to get him, and from there it was just liberal application of hypnosis.

They learned, to Medea's satisfaction, that she was right; Harry was descended of a line of Magi. From there, however, things got a little strange. Apparently wizards, as they referred to them, had abilities that made no sense to her. The very idea of accidental magic was antithetical to everything she knew of modern Magecraft. To be a magus was to walk with death, not _stumble_ into spells that conveniently did something for you.

Still, she had plenty of time to investigate the matter, and a test subject right at hand. When they were done with the Dursleys, they had what rights they had on Harry (albeit signed on mostly blank paperwork, in case they needed it), a strange letter, and a handful of facts about the local magic community that raised more questions than answers.

They moved into 6 Grimmauld Place. Apparently, a moderately powerful ley line rose briefly near the surface under the street. While Medea sensed there was another workshop using it, she was pressed for time, and set up her territory there anyway. Afterward, she decided wizards were unlikely to trouble her over it.

As she lacked a legal identity, and it would only raise questions, Harry did not attend school. He did, however, have a tutor, paid in cash and hypnotized to ask no questions. While his education was not critical to her, Magecraft did involve concepts like math, science, and critical thinking, and he would be much less useful if he could not read or write.

As far as Harry was concerned, life was better than it had ever been. As long as he could remember, his relatives were neutral at best, restrained hostility at worst. In such a household, he had to always be on edge, and could rely on no one but himself.

With Medea, he quickly learned that while she did not act _kindly_ towards him, she was never hostile. He knew that she valued him, if only in the same vein as she valued a moderately important item. She did not coddle him, but as far back as he could remember, he had never been treated any better, so the difference was lost on him.

She attempted to teach him basic Magecraft to no avail. However, she had a theorized a solution for that, and several months after she had been summoned, it was ready to be implemented.

* * *

"Do you recall when I had you stand in the circle, the day we met?" she said.

"Yes, just like the dozens of times since. You never did tell me what you found."

"I determined that you completely lacked Magic Circuits, the fundamental means by which modern Magi enact their mysteries. Your element is the Sixth Imaginary Element; not so imaginary, it seems. Your Origin is just as ridiculous; it is ακυρώ... Void? Nothingness? Something like that," she said. "Despite having no circuits, you seem to be able to produce a constant stream of prana, though you can't store it. Unlike Magi, it appears to be completely unaffected by ambient mana. Like you produce it from nothing. Unfortunately, right now this stream is completely used up by the Master/Servant bond we share."

"Since a wizard who can't even do wizardry, much less Magecraft, is pretty useless, I intend to form some of my own Magic Circuits into a crest and transplant them into you," she said. "There may be some complications, but nothing one such as myself cannot overcome."

Harry looked at her hesitantly. "Won't that reduce your power?"

"In theory, yes. In practice, no. I have a prodigious amount of circuits, and I almost never use them at all. Because of my era of origin, I am able to use a form of magic called High-Speed Divine Words. They can do most things that I need, and bypass the circuits entirely."

"Anyway, to cut it short, I'm just going to do a little surgery on your soul, don't worry."

She materialized Rule Breaker, her dagger, and smiled. Harry looked at her nervously. He took a step back.

"Don't worry, this will only hurt a bit. **ύπνος.**"

* * *

As Harry began to collapse, Medea caught him. Laying him out on a table and removing his shirt, she went into a storage room and retrieved the materials she had prepared. Surgical instruments, various potions, both of her own making and Wizarding potions she had from the strange workshop she arrived in. She had already forged the crest. What would normally be transplanted over the course of years, she was going to do in one session. But she was confident she could, essentially, force him to live. She could only guess how long it would take for the fragments of her soul to normalize with his own, given their inhuman origin.

She took a specially forged scalpel from the table. Technically, it was already a Mystic Code, even if it required her Divine Words to use as intended.

"**εκτελώ. πνευματικότητα.**" she said, and the scalpel began to glow.

She slowly cut the crest from her left arm. Ignoring the pain was very difficult, and there was no drug that could silence the mutilation of the soul.

Placing the extracted crest on the table, she began to excise a matching section from his arm.

She was not prepared for the results.

A enormous flare of prana came from the cut, lifting her off the ground and throwing her into the wall. Quickly, she moved back, and after a brief investigation determined that the wound appeared to be actualizing chains of prana, moving at high speed around his soul. The chains did not _seem_ to be malevolent, but they were definitely foreign. More wizardry, then. She didn't have time for this; the Crest was not affixed to real flesh, and would dematerialize if this took much longer. She could only hope that she could shatter the chains with brute force.

Materializing her Noble Phantasm, the dagger Rule Breaker, she clearly stated, "**Rule Breaker.**"

She stabbed the incision.

* * *

This is not the world of Magi. Wizardry, though it bore similarities to Magecraft, and though they could act upon one another, were fundamentally different in many ways.

There is a reason that wizards do not go about casually compelling, binding, twisting and altering one another. They did not have spells to do such things and be done with it. Whether it is an Imperius or an Unbreakable Vow, the caster must sustain the spell, constantly, or it will shatter. The chains wrapped around Harry Potters soul were not some static enchantment, they were being powered from afar. Such spells cannot be simply cancelled as long as the caster maintains them.

On the other hand, Rule Breaker is no Finite spell. it is the physical crystallization of the legend of Medea of Colchis, the sum of a life that resounded so strongly within the world that it was deemed worthy of recording in the Throne of Heroes. Betrayal. The breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence.

The Noble Phantasm struck and reversed entropy itself. The chains were unmade from existence. Unfortunately, the thaumaturgical link that had sustained those chains was not something that could be unmade. It was part of the soul of a wizard in Scotland.

* * *

Rule Breaker shuddered. In an explosion of light, Medea was pushed back from the table. She felt an enormous void within her. Most of her prana supply had evaporated, and her circuits were burning visible patterns into her skin. Harry was not so lucky. All around his arm was heavily burned, like someone stuck it in a fire. On the upside, the chains were gone.

Quickly, she moved to stabilize him. She had not prepared for anything like this; she would have to learn to expect the unexpected when dealing with wizards.

In the end, she was forced to use the untested wizard potions to stabilize him. From there, she was able to slowly but inexorably stitch the Crest into place. Finally, it was just a matter of countering the normally fatal physical symptoms of splicing in a piece of soul too far removed from the recipient. It took two weeks, but the Crest adapted.

* * *

Harry woke up to pain. His upper left arm felt like it was on fire, and his eyes hurt.

"Mmm, you're awake."

An annoyed Medea was not a good sign.

"Did something go wrong?" Harry asked.

"Several things. The most major was some sort of enchantment or spell that was wrapping your soul in almost literal chains. I destroyed it, but I have no idea what its purpose was, and going by the way it exploded, I don't think Rule Breaker removed it completely. Just enough to collapse it. It is troubling that a Noble Phantasm might not be able to overcome something like that, wizardry or not," she said. "After I handled the third degree burns though, it was pretty straightforward. The only strange thing I noticed during the procedure was some sort of soul fragment stuck in your scar, as odd as that sounds. It seemed stable, so I left it alone for now."

At least he wasn't dead. If he was anyone else, or had lived a different life, he would be hurt by her apparent disregard for his life. But he wasn't, and even though she never really gave him a choice he would have chosen this path anyway.

When he left the Dursleys, he was broken. But as time went by he came to a realization. Dudley got what he wanted because he took it. What he didn't take, his parents took on his behalf. Medea did what she wanted because she had the power to make it so, and she used it. Magecraft, wizardry, these things would give him the power to ensure that he was never treated that way ever again. And he would gladly walk with death to get it.

"How long was I out?"

"Oh, not long," she said airily. "Just two weeks. It may seem long to you, but in the worst case it could have been years. Modern magi tend to spend years slowly moving a crest piecemeal."

As much as he had accepted it, Harry was still unnerved.

"Now what?" he said.

She put her hand on his shoulder. "Wha-"

Everything went white hot for a second.

"That should activate your circuits, if they weren't as good as active already. Most of the circuits in the Crest are essentially blank, arranged to be used like natural circuits, but I did archive Command and Memory Manipulation. You should be able to immediately compel targets and block memory once you determine a trigger," she stated. "A trigger being a mental image that symbolizes the activation to you."

"By the way, I didn't really think about it much before, but it probably didn't help with your relatives that you sound older than you are. Most kids your age aren't quite as eloquent. Whether that's all you or something metaphysical, I can't say. I imagine it creeped them out, given their paranoid tendencies."

"I guess," Harry said. "Maybe that's why other kids didn't like me."

"It is only going to get worse. You have a personal tutor pushing you as quick as you can learn, and once I teach you memory partitioning and thought acceleration, it will distort your mentality further," Medea said. "I'm not willing to wait a decade just to avoid a little extra warping."

Her plans to risk his sanity notwithstanding, Harry noticed a more immediate problem.

"...Why is my arm glowing."

"That is the Crest. I don't know why its lit up right now. Normally, it only does that if you are using it," she said. "If I had to guess, its because you don't have any real circuits of your own, and our link is drawing off the Crest. If that's the case you're going to have to start wearing something thick there when we are in public."

Harry looked at her. "Seriously?"

"You get today to rest. Tomorrow we will find out if it even works."

* * *

AN: Oh, my, a story in which Harry doesn't conveniently get the best of both worlds without any repercussions. Blasphemy.

They are in the HPverse, not the Nasuverse. Nasuverse is some other Earth, across the Kaleidoscope. And if you think its the Age of Gods or anything similar because of how wizardry works, you are grasping at the easy answer. You might as well say the moon is in the Age of Gods just because you met a TYPE-MOON that had jesus powers, and that if you sneak onto a space shuttle you will become hax.

Mmm, those chains. Whether they are the easy answer, or something benign, well, who knows.

Caster vs. whoever… Not everything is as clear cut as it seems. The behavior of Rule Breaker here shows that. When things operate on concepts, all the power in the world doesn't help you if something happens to fall outside their focus. Rule Breaker can't unmake souls, for example. Also, Caster supported herself, with power to spare, _with the support of the Grail._ The grail charged up off 6 lines or something for like 50 years to power servants for some months. She's running live off one, of indeterminate quality. She is not currently in a position to drop a space colony on Hogwarts, etc. She is also constrained to a certain radius of her Temple/Territory, wherever she puts it, unless she wants to run off internal batteries, so to speak. That range can't cover England and Scotland at the same time. "everyone is dead" indeed, what a terrible Master I have.

I don't think she forms attachments easily, due to her past traumas. This is reflected in how she doesn't really mind control people for very long, and avoids ruining lives unless she's ending them. I can't see her doing to others what the Gods did to her, not if she has other options.

As for her and love? What she came to treasure about Kuzuki was that he never asked anything of her, and never expected anything of her. He did anything she asked of him, and when she told him of the war, and asked if he believed her, he simply asked her if she was lying.

Harry ain't gonna tell nothing he don't have to. And by have to I don't mean under the glare/disappointed face of Hermione/Dumbledore. The more anyone knows, the more it binds his fate. Not to mention it weakens Magecraft to share it, and that they can't use it, and that its a massively dick move to tell them all about a magic system they can't use. Might as well strap Hermione to a torture rack.


	3. Fanmail, Centerfold, Bank

The experiment worked. Harry was able to perform Magecraft. His thaumaturgy was twisted by his Element and Origin, however. He could distort the result slightly from the norm through his intent, almost like a form of Wishcraft. On the downside, most spells tended to take more prana from him to actualize than they did the average magus, even if he made no effort to twist the result. Harry felt it was worth it.

Over the course of the remainder of the year Medea taught him all the "common" Magecraft she knew.

Transmutation Magecraft performed exceptionally well for him. When he used Alteration, the result would often last for weeks. Rarely, an item simply would not revert with alteration. So far they had not managed to pin down why.

Reinforcement almost always remained in a diminished form. Through repeated application, he could produce an item with maximized Reinforcement that required no maintenance at all. This process had diminishing returns, though. Unsurprisingly, Medea was fascinated by this.

She hypothesized it had something to do with his element or origin and the mysterious prana he produced without circuits. Through careful measurement, she showed that she too was subject to this effect from their bond, though it was so diluted in comparison to her Temple it was meaningless.

Rune Magecraft didn't work right at all. It was as if the runes had fundamentally different meanings than they did in Caster's world.

He picked up memory partitioning and thought acceleration techniques very quickly, and it showed in both his magecraft and in his mundane studies.

Something considerably more distressing happened, though. Distressing to Medea, anyway.

* * *

Medea had just left the shower, when an owl flew erratically in through the open window. It flew past her and down the hall. She noticed a letter tied to one of its legs as it turned the corner.

Following it, she got to the library as Harry was opening it.

"Don't you think its a bit suspicious for a owl to fly in here and bring you a letter when nobody knows you're here?" she said, leaning against the door.

"I did a structural analysis, it has some sort of twisted interlocked bounded fields in it but it doesn't seem malevo-"

Blue light pulsed over Harry and he disappeared, the letter falling to the floor.

Medea twitched.

She levitated the letter, only to have it unfold like a centerfold. Yes, that kind of centerfold.

Her face reddened.

* * *

Harry felt like something hooked him and dragged him through a whirlwind of twisted space. He appeared in a pulse of blue light in what appeared to be some girl's room.

Looking around, he saw pink. Pink walls, pink bed sheets, posters of him… What?

There appeared to be a large artistic rendition of him above the bed. In a bookshelf against the wall he saw a variety of books with titles starting with "Harry Potter and the…".

Starting to feel very disturbed, Harry felt Medea attempting to form a shared perception link. He granted it, and felt her distress for a moment, then nothing.

_Medea?_

_One moment, I'm trying to reconcile the idea that a Mystery near the level of True Magic, beyond the power of almost any modern Magi, was just used to kidnap you by what appears to be a fan girl._

The door to the room opened. A teenage witch walked in.

Harry and the girl stared at each other for a moment.

"...Oh Merlin, are you Harry Potter? I can't believe it, I must be dreaming…"

* * *

Eventually, Medea came to help him escape. She claimed he got what he deserved for touching an unknown magical artifact mailed to him under suspicious circumstances. Harry felt no crime deserved such a punishment.

On the upside, Emily Vane, as the girl turned out to be named, was _absolutely _willing to help them with finding the 'Wizarding World'. She was willing to do just about anything they asked, no hypnosis required. She swore she wouldn't say anything to anyone, vibrating in glee.

She also explained just why she knew who he was, and all the things she 'knew' about him.

Medea promised a twitching Harry she wouldn't leave him alone with her.

* * *

"..So like, this is the Leaky Cauldron. Its the entryway to Diagon Alley from the muggle world," Emily said cheerfully.

"The muggle world," Medea muttered.

Emily led them into a dirty tavern filled with men and women in cloaks and robes. Harry was, himself, in a robe Emily provided. They didn't ask why she had it. An application of normal makeup had hid his scar.

She led them out the back into a courtyard. She tapped the bricks in the wall, and they folded back to show what looked like a window into time. A street of buildings that looked decades out of date, many of which looked structurally unsound. Stands hawking items that looked more like something Medea would have expected in a fairy tale.

She put her face in her hand. "I'm beginning to wonder if this is just some fever dream and I'm still dying on a road somewhere."

"What?" Emily said.

"Nothing. So you said Harry ought to have some sort of inheritance?" she said skeptically.

"Yeah! 'Cause he's like, the hero of the wizarding world, you know. I couldn't believe it when you said he didn't live in a huge castle or mansion or something, because the books all said he did."

Medea twitched, but said nothing. They followed Emily to a towering white building. It seemed to be the only thing in the Alley that you could be certain wouldn't fall over in a stiff breeze.

"This is Gringotts. Its run by the goblins, they should have his huge fortune waiting for him to ascend to his lordship or something, I'm sure." Emily said.

The entrance was guarded by a pair of goblins in armor. They eyed Medea warily as she entered the bank.

Emily lead them to a counter. "What do you want?" said the goblin behind the counter.

Emily leaned over the counter and whispered, "See him? He's Harry Potter, its a secret, though. He's here for his inheritance."

The goblin looked at her irritably. He pressed a button. A goblin in armor approached the counter.

"Inheritance is handled in an office down the hall, with the brass plate that says 'Vault transfers'. You will be escorted there. Attempting to falsely identify yourself is punished by enslavement followed by death."

Emily blanched, but didn't say anything as they followed the guard.

They were lead into an office with several wooden chairs. Behind a large desk was a slightly overweight goblin. "I am Account Adjudicator Rocksnout. I will be handling your business. What do you need done?"

Harry said, "I was told that I might have some sort of inheritance. My name is Harry Potter."

The goblin looked skeptical. "Hopefully you are telling the truth. It wouldn't be the first time someone has come in here saying that."

He flipped through a folder.

"There is a vault here for one Harry Potter. The key was mailed to you after your parents will was carried out. Since you are here, I can only guess that you don't have it. For many lesser vaults you would be out of luck. Fortunately the Potter vault has special protections that activated the moment your father died. It locked down, and will only exit this lockdown when you approach it. Once this has been confirmed we will replace the lock and key. It was wrought for the use of family anyway, as the owner you won't need it."

Emily certainly seemed impressed. She was practically bouncing in place.

The guard led them to a cart, and they rode down through a confusing array of turns and switchbacks. They passed through a waterfall, which left Medea sizzling. The goblin eyed her suspiciously, but said nothing. Emily sputtered until the water evaporated away a few seconds later.

Finally, they came to a halt in front of a massive metal door. Harry could feel a strange sort of vibration from the vault. Suddenly, his Crest flared. He could feel some sort of probe from the vault measuring him, pausing over the crest for a long moment as it heated up rapidly. Finally, it retracted to the vault. The door glowed for a moment and clicking noises could be heard from the door.

"Looks like you are who you say you are," the guard said, looking disappointed. "It will open for Harry Potter alone. Anyone can enter or leave while its open. Once the key has been reforged, others can use it to get in."

Harry rubbed his arm, wincing. They approached the vault door. Harry placed his hand on it. A pulse of magic rippled over him (along with another spike of pain from his Crest) and the door slowly rolled sideways into the wall.

The vault contained huge piles of gold, silver, and bronze coins. On the floor just inside the door was a trunk.

"I told you I told you I told you," Emily gushed. She started hyperventilating.

Pushing the trunk aside, Medea and Harry walked in. Against the wall were a few more trunks and a desk.

The guard spoke up. "The trunk at the door is things that were added after the lockdown. Anyone and anything that touched the door was sucked inside."

"Emily, would you please fill a few bags with coins for us?" Medea said pleasantly. Emily jumped up and grabbed the bags in her hand. "Of course!" she said. As she rushed off Medea's smile turned brittle.

Harry was looking through the trunks by the desk. "I don't really know what to take, there are books here but they could be anything from common spells to ancient family research."

"Don't take anything, then. We can always come back. These things were stored here for a reason. Given how easily you were whisked away by a 17 year old girl, I imagine it would be incredibly foolish to take all your family secrets out of the vault and carry them about."

"You're never going to let that go, are you," Harry said flatly.

"Harry, look at this…"

Medea was holding a cloak of some sort of shimmering, translucent cloth above the trunk by the door. It draped over her hand, and seemed to fade out leaving empty air where her hand ought to be.

"Oh, that's just an invisibility cloak," Emily chirped.

Medea worked her jaw for a moment.

"Perhaps we should look at the rest of the alley?" Harry suggested quickly.

* * *

After collecting bags of money and a selection of the more interesting artifacts, they returned to the surface. The goblins said they would hold the key after it was reforged for them, as mail did not work the first time.

Medea seemed to fluctuate between excitement and irritation at the things in the alley. "On one hand, there are tremendous opportunities here. On the other, I feel like everything I know of magic is being mocked."

"Considering magecraft is all I know, I'm in the same position. You don't see me working myself up over it."

"Its different for you! You've known magecraft for months. I've known it for decades. These limitations are far more real to me."

They went from shop to shop, buying anything that looked remotely interesting. Emily shrunk everything, Medea twitching every time she did so.

They approached a narrow, ramshackle shop.

Above the doors it said _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C._

As they entered, a bell tinkled. The room was bare except for a stool. After a moment in which they looked around curiously, an old man walked out of a small door hidden in the corner to the left of the door.

"Here so early, Harry Potter?" the man said. Medea's eyes narrowed.

"How do you know who I am?" Harry asked.

"Normally I'd just avoid the question, but given the… presence… I can feel from your friend, I will simply say that the 'magical signature' of everyone I meet is recorded forever into my soul the moment I lay eyes on them," he said, silvery eyes gleaming at them. "Where others must enact a ritual, or measure with a spell, I simply know. It is a trait of my family."

"And it just so happens to be very helpful for matching wands. I will dispense with the fanfare in your case, Mr. Potter. Based on your parents signatures, I prepared a wand for you. Whatever your friend has done to you, though, has changed things. You now require a different wand, so you will have to wait for me to craft it. I will return shortly."

The man turned and walked out of the room.

"That was not what I was expecting," Medea said slowly. "In fact, he acts the most like a Magus of anyone we have met so far, at least in his abilities. Not that that's saying much."

They waited, Harry and Medea impassively, Emily nervously. After about an hour, Ollivander returned.

"Elder wood. Precisely ten inches. Dragon Heartstring wrapped in Thestral hair. Flexible, to a point, but unyielding when it counts," he said. "Normally, a wand does not need two core materials; indeed, it can be worse off for it. But you seem to need different things at different times." He eyed Harry's left arm.

As Harry took the wand and swished it, he felt a surge of heat through him, swirling up his arm and across to the left. A searing cold spiraled around it only to spread out into the rest of his body. Sparks burst from the wand tip as the sensations faded.

"Looks like it fits. That will be... 12 Galleons," he said. After they paid him, he left the room without a word.

* * *

They cleaned out a bookstore, and left the alley. Medea performed a spatial transportation directly into the library, where Emily unshrunk everything, after which Medea promptly transported the two of them to Emily's room.

"You've been very helpful, Emily," Medea said coolly. "But I hope you understand how much trouble you could be in, if we had been so inclined."

"...Yes," Emily said nervously.

"Good!" Medea said cheerily. "Please don't try to kidnap Harry in the future, or I'll have to kill you."

Medea disappeared in a swirl of warped space before Emily had a chance to respond.

* * *

Wizard resources helped considerably with their research. Harry's narrow escape from possible molestation helped considerably with his caution.

The owls kept coming, though, and there were a fair number of them that turned out to be 'portkeys' like Emily's. They ended up having the house warded by a wizard contractor. For mail, he set up a enchanted hoop that would separate anything attached to an owl into inboxes based on whether they contained active magic or not. From there it was just a matter of casting various diagnostic spells that '_every wizard knows_'.

* * *

Unbeknownst to them, they were warded not a day too soon.

A few weeks ago, several things happened simultaneously. A dreary house in Surrey, England lit up bright enough to temporarily blind people nearby for hours. In Scotland, one Albus Dumbledore was just sitting down to lunch when he felt several magic links of his suddenly pull an immense amount of power and shatter. He collapsed with a similar flare of white light.

It took those weeks for him to recover enough to get out of the hospital wing. He quickly investigated everything he remembered actively supporting, only to realize that the only thing missing was the mail wards he had set up to redirect Harry Potters mail. He rushed to 4 Privet Drive, hoping that he was still here and not whisked off by some Death Eater letter, only to find the home with a charred paint job being repainted.

With a few gestures of his wand, he determined that the Blood Wards he had wrought had detonated the same time he collapsed. Furthermore, they were faded enough to suggest Harry had not been here in some time before that.

Dumbledore wondered if it was a stroke of luck after all that the mail wards had collapsed. He quickly wrote a letter and enchanted it, handing it off to Fawkes.

Had this happened a few weeks earlier, Harry would have undoubtedly triggered the portkey and started a trainwreck years ahead of schedule. Had it happened a few days earlier, the letter would have automatically activated after a certain amount of time, and flared magic in such a fashion as to be detectable to Dumbledore (and many others, for that matter).

But now? It flared in the inbox, and absolutely none of it got through the wards.

Dumbledore tried this approach several times, before focusing on more traditional detective work.

Unfortunately for him, Harry Potter would not be seen again for a very, very long time.

* * *

AN:

So some clarification on the grail deal. Basically in FSN canon, the grail helps support the Servants. Ilya summons Berserker super early and/or too far away, and even her monstrous reserves are taxed, leaving her in lots of pain till the war proper. The same applies to support Saber after the war ends; it costs so much Shirou can't do it himself, even though he could support her in the war, via brave, selfless "prana injections".

Since there is no grail here, I believe Casters existence costs far more than she would during a proper war.

Somebody said that Caster wouldn't have circuits. I disagree. I don't think that some wannabe magi came up with a idea for a part of the soul and then bred for it from scratch. The wiki entry for Caster also implies she has circuits even as it talks about her Words. If I'm wrong? I guess that's just more AU. I implied she "needs" them only insofar as if she wants to enact modern magecraft, she would have to re-interpret it if she wanted to do the same thing using Word(s), whereas if she uses what the peons do she doesn't have to. I also figure there is probably something out there a Circuit does better (or easier to solve for) than Words, even if its something obscure.

There is also supporting statements in the "10th Anniversary Q & A Booklet" that "a normal person rarely acquires Magic Circuits. You can consider such cases sudden mutations".

As for Harry being too tolerant? Medea is no foolish wizard. If she really wants something, she will do what she has to do, but she seems pretty reasonable when you are already resolved to doing whatever it takes to become more powerful anyway. If he were to vehemently reject something, I think she would probably go along with it, just because its not good business to antagonize him, in the long run. And who knows, maybe she's a little fond of him. Not that she'd say any such thing.

Regarding the soul chunk in his face: Rule Breaker didn't destroy it, but that doesn't mean Medea can't, or that it would even be difficult. She was just doing something time-critical and dangerous already. You don't stop in the middle of stitching a piece of your soul into someone else's to poke at something else. Whatever it was kept for 5+ years, as far as she knows, it'll keep for however long before she gets to it.

You may have been thinking "Why no tracking charm?" The answer is, they don't exist. I can't find any such thing in canon, in fact many things speak against it. The way I see it, the best they can do is much like we'd do it with radio: a signal. Unfortunately they can't (as far as they've learned how) power a constant one, and it is imprecise enough its "noisy" and annoys the hell out of everyone if they could. Finally, unlike radio, I imagine wards to contain magical energy have been around a long time. The owls do it using secret owl ninja techniques, that the wizards don't comprehend (anymore?).

The links between wizards and active spells go through wibbly wobbly magical wizard space and can't be used to locate something in euclidean space, short of (theoretically) retrieving an image and apparating, or using aforementioned pulse and following that.

Manipulative Dumbledore or concerned Dumbledore? Neither? Both? I'm not telling.

I'm gonna level with you on this 'core binding' business. Even if Dumbledore turns out to be evil, thats not it. Because in THIS world all wizards, by default au naturel, are equally powerful. After that, its skill and possibly augmentation via rituals/potions/spiritual surgery/whatever. Dumbledore and Voldemort are badass because they are like 150 and 70, and have some number of legit and sketchy mods (whether DD has sketchy ones, well, who knows). TL;DR if he reduced Harry's power, it would make him weaker than other wizards his age, all things being equal. I don't see that as helping any kind of Dumbledore.


	4. Long, Short Years

Long, Short Years

* * *

******1986**

"Harry?"

Harry looked up. Medea was holding a scalpel with a translucent blade.

"I just finished this. It's a new Mystic Code for spiritual surgery. I imagine a good test for it would be to remove that mysterious bit of spirit attached to your scar," she said, waggling the blade at him.

Harry looked at her dubiously.

"I don't understand why you didn't remove it before."

"I was trying to attach the Crest before it evaporated; as a Servant there is very little I can't heal, and when I healed the Crest would have been unmade if it was not a part of you. The entire procedure was full of risks, I was not going to tamper with something I did not fully understand in the middle of it."

"So what's your plan here?" Harry asked.

"Well, apparently binding spirits isn't all that unusual here. It is a way to remove ghosts and poltergeists without destroying them, for example. So I was quite literally able to buy an anchor off the shelf," Medea said. "It wasn't made for something this… substantial, but I am going to attempt to bind the fragment to the anchor. If it doesn't work, I'll just cut it loose and let it go. Better to be rid of it even if it can't be studied."

"Given that it is not attached to you in any functional fashion, I can only guess that it is a product of whatever happened the night your parents and Voldemort died. If nothing else, it might be a decent paperweight."

* * *

******1988**

Medea curled up on a couch, a novel in her hand.

When she accepted the original summon, she wanted a second chance. But all her hopes were for naught as her Master turned out to be as uncaring and controlling as the Gods ever were.

Then she found herself here, with a small boy for a Master, no war to fight. A new life with which to do whatever she wanted.

Harry was complicated. At first, she found him convenient. She needed a Master, and the one she got was as pliable as she could ask for, short of being a zombie. While she would not have hesitated to enthrall someone if she needed to, it was infinitely preferable to have a Master where it wasn't necessary. Becoming the embodiment of the very thing the Gods did to her left a bad taste in her mouth.

Then there were the dreams. Servants don't have to sleep, but they could. She had sealed off anything from her own mind leaking over, but sometimes, when she slept, she would dream of a cupboard. The same inquisitive nature that drove her to master Magecraft held her back from cutting it off. And it grew ever harder not to empathize, knowing all too well what it was like to be condemned for things she could not control.

It's not like she would have done anything terrible to him anyway, she reasoned. Wizards were a dime a dozen. If she needed to break one, there were far more disposable ones to choose from. And she had plenty to figure out before it got to that point. Doing anything like that now would just be bad science.

She also liked that he didn't talk much. Didn't lie either, not to her. Honesty was such a rare quality in any era.

Besides, he kept things from getting dull. Medea thought back to Emily Vane's letter and blushed. She hoped that the girl had been envisioning a older Harry Potter when she did that, otherwise it had disturbing implications.

Fortunately _that_ sort of fan mail wasn't too common.

It had been what, three years now since she arrived in this world? Harry had made remarkable progress, even before he learned the mind enhancing techniques. Afterward, he excelled. She still wasn't sure if she would let him go to Hogwarts. They were almost certain that the school would send a letter, given it was run by the same Dumbledore who personally placed him on a doorstep in the night and left him there.

Medea twitched.

Not that she cared or anything.

His progress was almost nonexistent on wizard magic. She theorized the reason they were given wands at eleven was simply because their magic just didn't really work before then.

It took relentless study for Harry to get down the diagnostic charms for mail. Even then, he cheated by spiking it with prana from his Crest.

Recently she had been considering more radical modifications for him. Ollivander had shown that wizards could possess what she was almost certain had been some Mystic Eye analogue. She'd always felt Harry's eyes were an unnaturally vivid green, and the way it matched the feared 'Death Curse' perfectly was too much of a coincidence. Similar life-altering events had awakened Mystic Eyes in her world before. Perhaps circuits, added in the right places…

It would need a great deal more thought, and a way to do it without actually cutting into the physical eyes. Even her latest surgical Mystic Code still did tissue damage. And if she was wrong, it'd be a waste of circuits and a risk for nothing.

In this world, her biggest problems seemed to be resisting the urge to slack off her research and read racy novels. And possibly eating too much.

Hunger was the enemy, after all.

* * *

Harry was a very different person than that day so long ago, when he accidentally apparated into some wizards storeroom.

He had gained confidence. He knew exactly what he was worth, and it was more than his bullies ever were, or ever would be. He had learned knowledge, both mundane and magic, that matched children half again his age. Much of it they had never even had the opportunity to learn. His magecraft, within its scope, could do things even wizards could never do, and it was entirely possible that Medea and himself were the only ones in all the world with this power. Medea's brutal honesty forestalled any tendencies to dismiss his self-worth before they could begin.

Through memory partitioning and thought acceleration, his mind had developed abnormally fast. He'd like to blame his relative maturity on it, but the truth is, the kind of life he had with the Dursleys destroyed his childhood before it began. Now all he could do was become the best he could be, everything they had wanted to deny him, and simultaneously ensure that nobody could drag him down ever again.

Harry's thoughts wandered back to the beginning.

A year ago, they had gone back, and systematically broke down the summoning array. It was almost incomprehensible, using all the runes Medea had known, but in ways that were as different from that as they were from the way wizards used them. It seemed to spit in the face of their every attempt to comprehend its nature. It remained a dead end for now.

Medea had mentioned her thoughts on Mystic Eyes. He wasn't sure what to think about that. Mystic Eyes could be incredibly useful, but they could just as easily be incredibly troublesome.

It was frustrating that he could not perform most wizard spells. It would be years before he was able to. His mind was so far ahead, but his body held him back. Medea seemed frustrated as well, but for some strange reason she did not want to bring in an older wizard for research. Perhaps she didn't feel they were secure against the myriad ways an untrustworthy wizard could mess things up. Even now, they occasionally found themselves surprised by some new spell wizards would casually pull out.

Of course, she had forever. Servants didn't age. She probably just wasn't in any hurry.

* * *

Dumbledore was troubled. Harry Potter had been missing for several years now. He knew he was alive; owls would not accept a letter to him if he was not. His attempts to contact him had gone poorly, however.

All attempts to find him had failed, whether by letter or by magic. He had pulled strings to have research done on a new, more powerful version of the locator pulse spell, but there were no results as of yet.

He had no one to blame but himself.

He should have had guards, more powerful wards, something. He was certain that the Blood Wards would prevent anyone from reaching him. The very idea of removing him from that home, for any reason, should have been turned away by it. Unfortunately, it was not compatible with the more common protective wards. He had chosen to gamble that it would be safer, and he had lost.

There was hope, though. The few responses he had received suggested that Harry might attend Hogwarts, though they stressed that such a thing was completely up in the air this early. Dumbledore strongly suspected that someone else was involved in the writing of the replies. It seemed unlikely that someone so young could be that well worded.

Well, there was little he could do for now. If he was lucky, there would be some breakthrough he could use. If he was fortunate, Harry would turn up in time for Hogwarts. If he was not... didn't bear thinking about.

* * *

******1990**

Harry wasn't in the house again. Medea figured he was off in Diagon or Knockturn. She couldn't be bothered to check. These days he actually did some independent research. Much of it seemed either about his unique twists on Magecraft or related to wizardry, which he was finally able to perform in a stable manner, at least for a short time.

She didn't mind his independent action. He had long since learned to be cautious. And if he hadn't, well, she could always retrieve him after he had experienced the consequences of being careless.

Medea was not worried about him blowing their 'cover'. Whoever knew about Harry Potter's change of address wasn't talking. She felt confident she could extract him from any situation he was likely to find himself in, at least the first time. Even if all else was equal, wizards would be caught as flat-footed by her abilities as she sometimes was by theirs... except they wouldn't see her coming.

After brainstorming with Harry, they felt the most profitable course of action was for him to attend Hogwarts. They would first try to get any concessions they could, of course. She had no doubt that any school would be willing to grant extra latitude to get a celebrity as a student, and that was before even touching Dumbledore's mysterious involvement in the whole Dursley affair.

Dumbledore. He had certainly been making quite the effort in his letters. At least he stopped enchanting them with various effects once he realized it was pointless. It was mildly amusing reading the various ploys to meet or discern their location that he would come up with.

She would get his real measure once it was time for Hogwarts.

And if the school turned out to be more trouble than it was worth? Well, there were others.

* * *

******July 24, 1991**

A incessant beeping woke Harry up. He looked blearily at the clock. It was 6:30.

After a shower, Harry headed into the living room. Medea was there, which was unusual this early.

"Good morning," she said. Medea held up a envelope.

"Morning. Something of interest I take it?"

"Well, if you consider the Hogwarts letter to be interesting, yes. Surprisingly, Dumbledore did not attempt to customize it. Perhaps he was concerned that some magic would treat letters from him differently, and treat it as such if he did."

"It is possible he didn't see any point. It isn't like he hasn't made every effort to get at me in some way already," Harry said bemusedly.

"Well, we'll see. Do you think he will push hard first thing?"

"I don't think so, or I wouldn't if I was him. As soon as he interrogates me it should be clear that I like where I am, and I can't see him wanting to alienate me right off, especially given the black mark against him already. Though he may not expect me to know he was responsible for the Dursleys," Harry said.

"No way to know until it's done. I take it you are prepared for the worst case?" she said.

"Yes."

* * *

AN:

This story is suffering from the inexorable effect of being my first fiction writing ever and being written on the fly with little to no plan whatsoever. But you-all don't seem too bothered, so hey.

I am feeling the pain of countless authors who want to write the fun parts but they need to slog through years of not-so-fun parts first. Your reviews give me strength!

I picked such an early date to have Medea enter stage left because her meeting Harry later would not allow him to have any of the qualities of a magus. He needed time to be changed, at a deep level. I want to write a story in which a Harry enters the scene with a rational, utilitarian mindset that, truthfully, I'm not sure exists in 11 year olds short of a rare combination of improbable brain development and life experiences. That doesn't mean I want to write chapter after chapter of him learning Magecraft and then turning 11. So yeah, totally doing a highlights reel here.

Just to make it clear to y'all: I only played through F/SN lightly, didn't watch the anime, can't read the manga, etc. The VN is not exactly search friendly, either. So if I'm wrong about something, not really much I can do about it. I don't think it will be a real problem, though; anything not described at all on the wiki is probably very subtle. And I'm butchering the hell out of HP canon, so its only fair if I accidentally a bit of T-M no?

Speaking of which, could you offer your insights on mind partition and the like: The gist I got was that you can think on a ridiculous number of things at once, but only if they are related in some fashion. Like you can control 10 puppets or calculate 50 incoming objects but you can't think about politics, engineering, gardening and operate a puppet at once. I'm going by a wiki entry, here, so you tell me if I'm totally off base here.

So, one of y'all was worried about bashing. I'm not necessarily going to pretend that characters aren't stupid if they're stupid, but I'm not going to turn them into two-dimensional strawmen. In fact, to be honest, I'm probably going to mellow some out. I've been lead to believe Snape is genuinely so horrible in canon that if you copy paste it, it'll count as bashing. I haven't read it in years so I don't know, but I can't write characters like that. Too much cognitive dissonance. Makes my head hurt trying to simulate.

Its been put forth that Harry is stronger than other wizards in canon. Maybe. The way I see it, it goes back to the skill. Skill is more than what you learn, its affected by anything that has to do with your mind. Harry had a horrible childhood. I can easily believe that he feels things deeper and harder than most people. And wizard magic is as much intent as it is words and swishes, I think. You gotta want it. Least thats my thoughts there.

About Gaia: It seems a bit presumptuous to assume that just because wizards do things more freely than Magi ever did, that there is no force there, pushing back. If nothing else, if you say theres no pushback from the world, then Magecraft story breaks, full stop. It also seems unlikely wizards went and cleaned up every fallen wizard civilization or settlement that predated (or even postdated) the Statute. The magic must have been eroded or _something_, they can't all have muggle wards. Responsible wizards? Psh.

The wand thing: Mostly a whim. The short of it is it was meant to relate to the Crest and Medea.

It absolutely does not mean his wand is more powerful or anything cliche like that, merely that it simultaneously has good compatibility with both Harry's magic and his Crest, which do differ slightly. Ollivander doesn't even care whether that will ever be useful or not; he is a perfectionist.

Finally, one of you was not sure what went down with Caster pre-summon: the short of it is, in canon she has some unknown master before Kuzuki, who she kills and then gets the Temple, sets up, then hooks up with Kuzuki. Here, she fucked up somehow and doesn't reach the Temple in time to tap it for power and avoid dying.


End file.
